"Well enough." Rhavas unbent enough to add, "Perhaps even a bit better than that."
"I am glad to hear it," Digenis said. "Is this on account of the news from the south, very holy sir, or do you also have other reasons?" He was as avid for gossip as any other Videssian. He also had good connections; the news of Maleinos' victory over Stylianos wasn't all through Skopentzana yet.
"I am certainly glad the news from the south is good," Rhavas replied. If he had any other reasons, they were none of Digenis' business. "Can you give me more news to make me happy? How is my book coming?"
"It's coming well, very holy sir," the scribe told him. "I do have to interrupt it every now and then to take on some small project that will put gold in my belt pouch, but I always return to it as soon as the other work is done."
Rhavas made a discontented noise. He'd paid Digenis in the usual way for a long work: half at the beginning, half when the book was done. That had been a while ago now; of course the scribe would have gone through most of the first installment by this time. Part of Rhavas wished he'd given Digenis the whole fee at the start. The rest, the cynical part, wondered if the other man would have lifted a finger to write if he had.
"How are you coping with my hand?" the prelate asked.
"It gets easier as I go along. I'm used to it now," Digenis answered. "Meaning no offense, though, I still think I'll make my second copy from my first, and not from your original."
"You may do that—after I've been through your first to correct your errors," Rhavas said in a voice like all the worst parts of Skopentzana winter.
He waited to see if Digenis would swell up with indignation and deny he would make any. Some scribes labored under the delusion that they were perfect. More wanted their clients to labor under that delusion. Rhavas knew better. He had yet to see a book with no scribal errors. Most of the books he'd seen held quite a few. He was ready to sound even icier than he had already if Digenis tried to claim he was somehow set above the common run of pen pushers. Perfection is reserved for Phos alone made a good opening. He could go on from there, too.
But he turned out not to need to. Digenis said only, "Well, I hope you won't find too many of them, very holy sir."
Rhavas felt like a trotting horse getting ready to gallop that was suddenly told it had to walk instead. "So do I," he said gruffly.
"Interesting, reading what you have to say," Digenis remarked. "Half the time—more than half the time—you know, a scribe doesn't pay any attention to what he's copying. The words go from your eyes to your hand. You don't think about them in between. I started out like that with your book, too. I couldn't keep it up. What I saw made me think about what I was writing. I couldn't help it."
"For which I thank you." Rhavas was flattered, but not particularly surprised. Videssians were mad for theology: not just priests but potters and farm wives coming into town to sell cabbages. The ones who had their letters—and some of the ones who didn't—could reason with surprising sophistication, too. Rhavas couldn't help asking, "And what do you think?"
"You argue very strongly," Digenis replied. "If anything, I think you make Phaos too strong in the world as it is. He will win in the end, surely—I am orthodox. But the end is not yet. Skotos remains a potent foe." He spat on the floor after naming the dark god.
"Good is stronger than evil. We see it every day," Rhavas declared.
"Anyone would know you come from a rich family, very holy sir," the scribe said in a low voice.
The prelate wasn't sure he should have heard that. He was sure it made no difference, which went some way toward proving Digenis' point.
II
Day followed day. Rhavas never stopped exclaiming when fogs and rain came to Skopentzana even in the summertime. "Anybody would know you came from Videssos the city, very holy sir," Zautzes said when they met by Stavrakios' statue one misty morning.
The prelate frowned. Someone else had said something like that to him not long before. He couldn't recall who, or why. Not being able to recall annoyed him, as it always did. "What is the news?" he asked the prefect. His breath smoked when he spoke. That would never have happened in summer in the capital, either.
"Not much," Zautzes answered. "The only thing I'm sure I can truthfully tell you is that Stylianos hasn't given up the fight. The war goes on."
"Too bad." Rhavas meant that with every fiber of his being. "I'd hoped he would see he can't win and give up the fight."
"Even if he does see he can't win, he may not give up," Zautzes pointed out. "What can a rebel expect if he tries to surrender? The sword, little else. Maybe exile to a monastery if he's very, very lucky. With that to look forward to, why not hope for a lucky break?"
Rhavas frowned again, not because he didn't agree but because he did. "If Stylianos' followers see he cannot win, they'll abandon him," he said. "Then he'll have no choice but surrendering or trying to disappear."
"No doubt you're right," Zautzes said. "It hasn't happened yet, though—or if it has, I haven't heard of it."
"Nor I." Rhavas tried hard not to let his irritation show. News came slowly to Skopentzana. It was too far from places that mattered to expect anything else. The prelate knew as much. He'd understood it when he came here; it was one of the reasons he'd been so much less than delighted to come here. Through all the years since, it had bothered him less often than he'd expected it to. Of course, those years had been quiet. The Empire of Videssos was quiet no more.
"One good thing . . ." Zautzes said.
"I'd gladly hear anything good," Rhavas said. "What is it?"
"That the Halogai are quiet," the prefect answered. "You always worry that a rebel down on his luck will send lieutenants over the border and bring barbarians back into the Empire." Rhavas had seen that he wasn't a particularly pious man. The eparch sketched the sun-circle even so, to turn aside the evil omen.
Matching the gesture, Rhavas said, "What of the Khamorth? Stylianos always had more to do with the nomads than with the wolves of the north."
Zautzes looked west, toward the broad plains of Pardraya. Again, Rhavas did the same thing. No Videssian could say with certainty how far those plains ran, or what lay at the far end of them—if they had a far end. Writers with more imagination than sense peopled the distant steppe with dog-faced men and web-footed men who lived in the rivers and men with no heads but with faces in the middle of their chests. Rhavas didn't believe in any of those prodigies, but he couldn't prove they were only imaginary.
Slowly, the eparch said, "I can hope he wouldn't want to bring them into the fight. When you deal with Khamorth, you're always liable to get more than you bargained for."
Now Rhavas glanced toward the sun, which was trying to burn its way through the morning mist. The disc was dim enough to let him look at it without hurting his eyes. Just as it had more radiance than it was showing, so the steppe nomads could indeed cause more trouble than those who tried to deal with them often looked for. One clan chief, or two, or three, might sign their men up as mercenaries. That was all right. But if they found the pickings good, more nomads might follow, and still more, until Videssos had to try to drive them back beyond the frontiers. That had happened more than once since Stavrakios' day.
"How much of the Empire would be nothing but grazing land if the Khamorth had their way?" Rhavas asked.
"If the Khamorth had their way? Why, all of it, very holy sir," Zautzes answered.
Again, he was bound to be right. He was telling an unpleasant amount of truth this morning. Rhavas' gaze went to the great statue of Stavrakios. The conqueror seemed ready to go to war on the instant—or he would have if a pigeon hadn't perched on the palm of his left hand.